Web pages are a widely recognized and well known communication mechanism. The functionality of web pages has been increasing since they were first introduced in the late 1980's. Typically, web pages are documents written according to certain standardized rules which enable content to be displayed by a browser application programmed to apply the standardized rules. Examples of standardized rules governing the display of a web page include Hypertext Markup Language (“HTML”), Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (“XML”) and Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language (“DHTML”). Web pages in these and other languages may employ processes to increase the functionality of such web pages. Such processes, also referred to herein as “applets”, may be employed to dynamically display content for a web page, communicate with a back-end server, or provide an improved user interface, for example.
A typical environment of an HTML page usually includes a set of loosely related or independent components. In such an environment, it may be difficult to establish workable relationships to facilitate cooperative communication among and between various applets or processes included in the web page. At least one factor impeding the establishment of workable communications is the applet identification mechanism in the runtime environments which relies on the ability of the Java applet to “look around” and detect the presence of other applets. Specifically, when a communication channel is to be shared among applets, the participating “client applets” must be able to find the common communication agent, through which they place data requests and receive responses. While the “look around” mechanism is commonly known, it is difficult to use because of certain problems arising from inconsistent implementations of the Java Virtual Machine between different vendors.
Such applet identification may be difficult under the prior art, at least in part, because the standardized applet identification/enumeration mechanism existing in the Java language, namely AppletContext.getApplets, may return any applet subset ranging from the applets found on the current html page to all applets known to the Java runtime engine. Similarly, a communication applet may face difficulties in locating the client applet to which it has to convey the received data.
Accordingly, there is a need for methods and systems which overcome the difficulties associated with client applets identifying a communication applet with which to place their data requests. Specifically, there is a need for methods and systems which enable reliable applet identification, thus facilitating the ability of Java applets to locate other Java applets on an HTML page. A further need exists for methods and systems which allow a communication applet to identify client applets when results have been received from a server and are ready to be delivered to the requesting client applet.